Blackstone determines the best oil brand

[Buffalo_Rob]

The good news is it looks like it's all of them . Now I don't feel so bad about being cheap and buying Castrol.
Blackstone's report:
https://www.blackstone-labs.com/News...uly-1-2017.php
Article highlighting findings:
http://thegarage.jalopnik.com/why-ex...ney-1797241527

I'm sure guys who are putting in a bunch of track time will disagree, but for the rest of us this is useful.

[stevesnj]

FAKE OIL TESTS!

[driggity]

So, is a 25% difference between the best and worst in terms of wear rate (based on their iron parts per million chart) really negligible?

[OND]

I think their point is that 25% of negligible is negligible.

[driggity]

Originally Posted by OND

I think their point is that 25% of negligible is negligible.

My thought there is either the oil is being changed sooner than it needs to be (which is very possible) or if this isn't a limiting factor in the life of the oil then it's not worth looking at/comparing.


Unless it comes with big downsides elsewhere I have a hard time with just handwaving away 25% improvements.

[Buffalo_Rob]

Originally Posted by driggity

My thought there is either the oil is being changed sooner than it needs to be (which is very possible) or if this isn't a limiting factor in the life of the oil then it's not worth looking at/comparing.


Unless it comes with big downsides elsewhere I have a hard time with just handwaving away 25% improvements.

Page 3 has all the answers you seek....
"Shell Rotella T6 had the lowest iron wear rate, at 2.03 ppm per 1,000 miles,
while Royal Purple 5W/30 had the highest wear rate, at 2.58 ppm per 1,000
miles. The difference is just over half a part per million per 1,000 miles,
which is almost completely negligible.
In a typical engine, a half a part per million of the oil in the sump is such a
small quantity that you wouldn’t be able to see it without a microscope."
And
"if you know it’s there, it might bother you, but realistically, you’ll never notice the difference."


So try to think of it like:
How much more are you willing to pay for 25% extra of nothing?

[jvincent]

I would have been more interested if they had published the change in viscosity of the different oils.

[Azzudien]

Originally Posted by driggity

My thought there is either the oil is being changed sooner than it needs to be (which is very possible) or if this isn't a limiting factor in the life of the oil then it's not worth looking at/comparing.


Unless it comes with big downsides elsewhere I have a hard time with just handwaving away 25% improvements.

Its not a 25% improvement, it is 2.03ppm vs 2.58ppm

If you convert both of those to % of ppm the percentage improvement is actually 0.00000055%

Which in essence is zero.

[humfrz]

Bubba could have told us that there is no difference, without a fancy study ....... but, nobody asked him .....


humfrz

[Somerandom18]

Good thing I never fell for royal purple.

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

[stevesnj]

Originally Posted by jvincent

I would have been more interested if they had published the change in viscosity of the different oils.

Viscosity won't matter I would think. It's the way the oil reacts to the engine internals and it's chemical makeup after use.

[jvincent]

I was thinking in the context of taking the car to the track. I usually change my oil pretty frequently during track season, but I was curious how the different brands maintained their viscosity with age.

[stevesnj]

Originally Posted by jvincent

I was thinking in the context of taking the car to the track. I usually change my oil pretty frequently during track season, but I was curious how the different brands maintained their viscosity with age.

Good question, I would think Dino oil would lose viscosity more so than Synthetic.

[Ernest72]

Plenty of old timers got 200K on cars with Dino oil and orange Fram filters. Guess this backs them up.

Pick a good oil -stop worrying what others are using - spend 20 bucks to test it - have piece of mind and go enjoy the car.

I love the arguments at the PPM level - too funny.